Loveplay. Diana Palmer

get only half the things in their proper place. By the time Janet left, Bett was too tired to do anything except go to bed.

      Her dreams were restless and unnerving and full of Cul. She woke up before dawn to the sound of a screaming child in the apartment above and couldn’t close her eyes again. She got up and made coffee, and stared out the window at the wall across the way. The only view was straight up, and it was too chilly to lean that far out the window.

      She sipped her coffee, remembering how it had been six years ago. She had been a struggling young actress then, and Cul had written his first play. It was being performed by the local summer stock theater where the two of them had been performing for several weeks. Up until that time, she and Edward McCullough had been moderately friendly—it was impossible to work in such a small group of people without getting to know each of them. But Bett had been much more involved emotionally than Cul, from the very beginning. She remembered looking at him when he was introduced as the group’s newest player, and wanting him with a wild fever. Considering her puritanical upbringing in Atlanta, and her virginal status, it was surprising to find a man having that effect on her.

      Because he bothered her so much physically, she’d begun needling him. It was a habit that took hold early, and had a lasting effect. Cul took it with unexpected good humor. And then they began rehearsals on his new play.

      Bett, because of her unusual coloring and talent, had been given the female lead. Cul would have been perfect for the male lead, but had refused it, giving the part instead to Charles Tanner, an actor of large proportions and moderate talent.

      The female part was that of a liberated young woman out on her own and enjoying liaisons. The male part was frankly reticent and condemning. The play contrasted the conservative viewpoint with the liberated one, and did such a splendid job of it that Cul was approached by a theatrical backer. Shortly thereafter he left for New York. But not before he’d done some devastating damage to Bett’s emotions.

      She’d always told herself that she had followed him to New York because of his cold observation that she’d never be star material with all her hang-ups. But sometimes she wondered if it wasn’t because she’d loved him so much.

      Her eyes closed and she could see them together that first evening, when he’d been coaching her in the part.

      “You just can’t let go, can you, Bett?” he’d accused coldly after a half-dozen failed attempts at dialogue. He’d slammed the script down on the coffee table in his small apartment and reached for her. “Well, baby, let’s see if this kind of coaching isn’t what you need the most…!” And he’d kissed her.

      Six years later, she could still feel the wild impact of his mouth on hers. Months of watching him, hoping, praying for just a few seconds in his arms, and it had happened just that suddenly.

      She remembered going stiff from the burst of pleasure, mingled with apprehension, at the intimacy of his hold. Cul was eight years her senior and obviously experienced, and she hadn’t known what he’d expected from her. The expression on his face when he lifted his head had been a revelation.

      “Is that the best you can do?” he’d asked wonderingly.

      She’d flushed and tried to get away, but he’d held her securely against his long, lean body. There was steel in his fingers, in the wiry arms that held her.

      “Not yet,” he’d murmured, studying her. “You’ve always reminded me of Elizabeth the First. Do you remember what they called her, Bett?”

      She’d chewed on her full lower lip to stay its trembling. “Yes.”

      “The Virgin Queen,” he’d continued quietly, searching her face. “Do you have that in common with her, too, as well as her hair and eyes?”

      She’d tried to avert her eyes, but he’d held her face up to his intense study.

      “No wonder you can’t play the part properly,” he’d said then. And he’d smiled. “All right, Miss Hang-ups. Let’s see what we can do about those unexpected inhibitions.”

      And he’d kissed her again. This time it had been give and take, advance and retreat, until he woke the sleeping fires in her and she arched up and gave him her heart.

      He’d sent her home minutes later, without taking what she’d been so eager to give him. And for the weeks that followed, they’d been inseparable, on stage and off. By the end of the summer, she’d been totally committed, and hoping for happily ever after.

      It had come as a wild shock when Cul broke it off. Abruptly, without warning, announcing in front of the entire company, including Bett, that he was leaving for New York to direct his play on Broadway.

      Bett had gone to his apartment that evening to wait for him. And he’d come home with one of the women in the cast, one with a reputation for giving out, and he’d laughed at Bett’s quiet query about the future of their relationship. Both of them had laughed. And Bett had cried herself to sleep. But it had gotten worse. The next day, the whole cast knew about it. Cul left and Bett gritted her teeth and tried to play out the season. But his parting shot had been that she was limited to small summer stock groups, and she’d determined immediately to show him she wasn’t. She’d gotten on the next plane to New York, and there she’d been ever since.

      She sipped her cold coffee with downcast eyes. Well, he’d told her from the very beginning that he wouldn’t get involved with her physically. He wouldn’t take her virginity, even though she blatantly offered it. Perhaps it was as well. He’d announced loudly, and to anyone who cared to listen, that marriage wasn’t one of his future goals. He planned to go through life single, and despite the fact that he and Bett had been a brief item, it was a relationship without a future.

      But they’d had a special kind of relationship, for all that. She could talk to him as she could talk to no one else. And he seemed to confide in her, as much as he confided in anyone. There were still unexplored depths to his character that she doubted anyone had ever plumbed. He was a zealously private person.

      When she came to New York, it was inevitable that as she started to climb up from part to part, they’d meet socially. She still occasionally needled him in the old way, and he took it all with unexpected good humor. She wondered if sometimes he didn’t see through the playing to the deep hurt he’d inflicted, and tolerated her biting remarks for that reason.

      But the thirst for revenge was still strong, and flared up every so often. He’d never know how bitterly he’d hurt her, how he’d damaged her budding emotions. She hadn’t been capable of a deep relationship since the day he walked out. Perhaps she never would be. And for that, she owed him.

      She poured out the rest of the coffee and went to get dressed.

      The first day of rehearsal was exciting. She liked the rest of the cast immediately. The play promised to be great, and everyone hoped it would have a long run on Broadway. Considering what it cost to produce, it would be a disaster if it folded too soon. Of course, any play was a risk. But with the caliber of Cul’s script, and its previous long run many years before, they felt it couldn’t help but hit.

      Cul spoke to the players, lingering on the good fortune of finding an actress with Bett’s talent. For the first day, since he was doubling as director, he worked out the blocking —the deft art of moving actors and actresses around the stage without having them run over each other while they spoke their lines. Each movement had to have motivation, and since the actors were working from scripts, not memorized dialogue, it was more difficult. Bett knew from the old days that, by the third day, Cul would expect them to do the entire play without the scripts.

      Bett obeyed quickly and without argument as Cul gave her directions, and she went carefully through her own blocking, noting it on her script.

      But the actor who was playing opposite her, a method actor who came from a well-known acting school in the city, had to have his motivation for each step spelled out. Cul obliged with unexpected patience, explaining as they went along. Unfortunately the actor disagreed with half the moves and wanted to rearrange his own movements. The resulting